Yi Tien Cho
)Age as of the end of ''Written in My Own Heart's Blood. |Deathdate= |Marital= Single |Alias= Mr. Willoughby |Title= |Gender= Male |Height= |Hair= Black |Eyes= |Skin= |Family Members = |Occupation= |Clan= |Nationality= Chinese |voyager=true |Actor = Gary Young |Seasons = season3 }} Yi Tien Cho, nicknamed Mr. Willoughby by Jamie, is a Chinese exile living in Edinburgh. Even more of a duck out of water than Claire, he can do acrobatics, has a sexual fetish for women's feet and a low tolerance for alcohol, none of which endears him to the local population. Mr. Willoughby has some knowledge of healing using Chinese medicine such as and . Personal History Yi Tien Cho was a – a bureaucratic scholar in the government of Imperial China. He was gifted in the art of composition and was taken under the wing of another Mandarin, Wu-Xien, who recognized his talents. He rose rapidly through the ranks, achieving eminence before his 26th birthday, and his poetry was noticed by the Emperor's Second Wife, who requested that he become part of her household. This was a great honor, but all servants of the royal wives must be eunuchs. It was extremely dishonorable for anyone to refuse this request, but Yi Tien Cho had fallen in love with womankind, and did not want to lose his manhood. On the , when the streets were crowded and the watchmen distracted, Yi Tien Cho disguised himself as a pilgrim and left the city. He was almost caught the next day, as he had forgotten to cut his fingernails, and still had the long nails of a Mandarin. He managed to escape his pursuers, and afterward destroyed his nails. Eventually he made it to a seaport and stowed away on the ship with the most barbarous looking crew, working on the assumption that they would be sailing the farthest from China. The ship was the Serafina, bound for Edinburgh. He arrived in 1764 and lived on the docks, stealing food and alcohol, and was close to death when Jamie Fraser found him. Jamie took him under his wing and renamed him Mr. Willoughby, as his Chinese name sounded like a coarse word in Gaelic if mispronounced. Events of the Novels ''Voyager Personality Yi Tien Cho emphasizes his own peculiarity around Europeans; his drunkenness and strange, often comical behavior mask a deeper resentment of his dependence on the good will of men like Jamie. Physical Appearance He is a very small Chinese man who shaves his head except for a small patch of hair, which he wears in a long queue.Voyager, chapter 25 Name *Yi Tien Cho says that his name means "Leans Against Heaven." Chinese names tend to place surname ahead of given name, by which "Yi" is his surname. However, as he has been living in a society where surname is placed last, he might have accommodated as such, by which his surname would be "Cho". *'Yi' is from the Chinese 倚 (yǐ) meaning "to lean".倚 via Wiktionary. Accessed 24 October 2017. This is a rare Chinese surname. *'Tien' is from the Chinese 天 (tiān) meaning "sky; heavens; heavenly; celestial".天 via Wiktionary. Accessed 24 October 2017. *'Cho' may be 愁 (chóu), meaning to worry, be anxious. In the context of his entire name, this character does not add or augment the meaning of the preceding 2 characters, but confers a slightly poetic quality to his name. As a possible surname, Cho may be a romanization of 趙 (Zhao), 曹 (Cáo), or 卓 (Zhuo). *'Willoughby' is a habitational name from any of the various places called Willoughby, for example in Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, and Warwickshire. They are named from an Old English wilig "willow" + Old Norse býr "farm, settlement", or perhaps in some cases from wilig + Old English beag "ring".Ancestry: Willoughby. Accessed 03 August 2016 Trivia *While traveling on the Artemis he caught a pelican and named it Ping An (平安) "Peaceful One", with the intent of training it to catch fish for him. *Yi Tien Cho was inspired by and based on a real historical figure – a Chinese immigrant named Hu, who arrived in Edinburgh in the mid-18th century. *In the book, Yi Tien Cho's native language is Mandarin, but Gary Young, the actor who plays him in the television adaptation, speaks Cantonese. TV Series New Zealand actor Gary Young portrays Yi Tien Cho in the Outlander television series. Appearances Season Three *A. Malcolm *Crème De Menthe *The Doldrums *Heaven and Earth *Uncharted *The Bakra *Eye of the Storm Gallery Yi Tien Cho.jpg S03E09-still10.jpg S03E09-still4.jpg S03E09-still5.jpg Yi-Tien-Cho.jpg References Category:Characters Category:18th century characters Category:Characters in Voyager Category:Characters in Season 3 Category:Male characters